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I don't look back on school with terribly fond memories. Kids are mean, meaner than anyone can imagine, unless they've experienced it themselves. Teachers seem to forget how downright horrible they were when they were at school and few can see past the innocent faces with just a hint of a sly grin, few realise the jibes and cruel comments flying when their back is turned. I didn't have visible bruises, so they told me I was just too sensitive.

My school life was 12 years of constant reminders that I was not worth friendship or love because I was smart, because I wear glasses, because I wore a size 14, because I did my homework, because I worked hard. I was laughed at because, at 15, I had not yet had a boyfriend, and I was told I would never have a boyfriend, because I was ugly and nobody wanted girls who liked books more than people anyway.

It was depressing. There is no other word for it.

I helped in the library so that I didn't have to go outside at break and lunch. The librarians let me break the no food rule as long as I didn't tell anyone. I buried myself in the books, because I think a tiny part of me knew that nothing I could do would make the bullies like me, and that even if I could, I didn't want their friendship anyway.

By the time I left school, I'd made a couple of friends - other "misfits" - but we fell out of touch again when we moved onto other things, and the last I heard, one of them was working in Japan, and the other was raising wolves in Romania.

When I went to sixth form, the bullies did other things, but I still didn't know how to be friends with people, and that continued through three years of further education until I went to university. It was only when I started spending weekends in London during my first year that I really began to make friends, and yet I don't have a cover photo for Facebook of me and my peers laughing and throwing graduation caps into the air. Maybe next time.

I'm getting the hang of it now, the friendship thing, but I still wonder, sometimes, when I'm lying in bed with the arms of someone I love wrapped around me, just what I've done to deserve them, and, ten years after I left that wretched school, I still ask myself if I'm worth it, if I'm good enough, and if all these thoughts will ever just...

I helped in the library so that I didn't have to go outside at break and lunch. The librarians let me break the no food rule as long as I didn't tell anyone. I buried myself in the books, because I think a tiny part of me knew that nothing I could do would make the bullies like me, and that even if I could, I didn't want their friendship anyway.

Paul sometimes asks why we don't go to school reunions. "Because," I say, "there's half a dozen blokes in this gaming group from the school; and maybe half a dozen more I can stand. The rest, I wouldn't piss on if they were on fire."